


dearly depressed and brokenhearted (i'd like to let you know that boys cry too)

by bellawritess



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: .............or BOTH, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, Rain, You Decide, anti-jacket rhetoric, is it tears or just the fuckin rain?, it's not super angsty it's just like. you know. it's angst idk, just kidding. i decide. i wrote the fic, kind of? i guess, set in my favorite era: the Ambiguously Unspecified Era, where i haven't decided so i just keep it real vague and possibly an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29193789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellawritess/pseuds/bellawritess
Summary: Michael returns. He’s wearing a jacket and a beanie and there’s a blanket from off their couch in his hands.“Michael,” Luke says.“Please,” Michael says. “I’m obviously not going to convince you to come inside, but I don’t want you to freeze.” He takes the steps, footsteps falling where Luke’s had, and comes close enough to Luke that when he offers up the blanket, Luke reaches out and takes it. “I know you don’t wear jackets,” Michael explains.(It's cold and rainy out. Luke goes for a walk.)
Relationships: Michael Clifford & Luke Hemmings
Comments: 16
Kudos: 26





	dearly depressed and brokenhearted (i'd like to let you know that boys cry too)

**Author's Note:**

> so i wanna preface this whole fic by just reminding everyone that i'm fine
> 
> okay. so. it goes without saying that i am not the boss of you guys. if you are really inclined to read this fic as pre-slash then go right ahead. but it was written with the intention of being entirely platonic. i really, really wanted to write about friendship. so if you don't _mind_ reading a gen/platonic fic, i'd encourage/ask you to read this one that way. but again, and i cannot stress this enough, i'm not in charge of you. do what you want, i will be none the wiser, i can't read your mind (eyes emoji....or can i........)
> 
> shoutout to mili (who isn't even going to read this) for giving me the idea for the so much therapy playlist. i've been listening to variations of therapy for three and a half hours
> 
> thank you adri for help with the title/summary <3
> 
> title from how do you feel? by the maine
> 
> [read on tumblr if you want](https://clumsyclifford.tumblr.com/post/642175116156043264/dearly-depressed-and-brokenhearted-id-like-to)

It’s Saturday, or maybe Monday. Luke has stopped keeping track.

Rain is coming down, slowly but surely. Going outside is sure to end in getting soaked to the bone, probably shivering. Especially if Luke doesn’t bring a jacket.

He goes anyway.

The chill in the air wraps around him like clingfilm, settling under his skin. For a moment outside it would be bearable, but Luke plans to be outside a bit longer than that. He’s going to be cold. He is probably going to lose feeling in his fingers. It would be best to go back inside. Grab some gloves. Maybe a warm coat. Drizzling rain follows the wind and sprays in his face. Luke takes the front steps, one, two, onto the damp grass, which gives under his footsteps. Another. Another. Water soaks through the front of his shoes; his socks are going to get wet and soon he’ll lose feeling in his toes as well. 

He’s not _trying_ to go numb or anything. Maybe he’s a bit of a masochist, but who isn’t? It’s not like the cold is going to give him permanent damage. He’ll go back inside when he can’t handle it anymore, but he has time before he reaches his threshold. Outside is the only place Luke can possibly fathom being right now. Everywhere else is wrong. Too bright or too loud or somehow otherwise just wrong.

Here, in the elements, his hoodie barely protects his face from the biting wind. Sleeves over his hands only do so much, even if he curls the ends of them into his palms. Jeans are not the right trousers to wear when it’s below freezing. The rain is only making it all worse.

Luke keeps walking.

He keeps his head down, watching his feet as they carry him forward, one in front of the other with no clear destination except _away_. _Away_ will eventually circle around and lead him home again — he’s not trying to permanently escape. Something about the rain feels like a reset button, and that might be exactly what Luke needs. 

The thing is, this walk is supposed to be clearing Luke’s head, not weighing it down. Not weighing _him_ down. Nothing is really wrong. If Luke tries to parse through his day, or the last couple of hours, he could probably single out a couple of things that might be to blame — calling home always makes him a little more fragile; _call ended_ digs into his chest every time in a way that feels tragically, unjustifiably final — but he’s tired of having a _reason_ for feeling heavy. Sometimes life is just hard. That’s the issue with the question _what’s wrong,_ Luke thinks, blinking at the lights reflecting off the glistening road. Often, nothing is wrong. _Does something have to be wrong for me to feel bad?_ he wants to say, except nobody has even asked him, and this entire conversation is happening inside his head.

Even in his head he’s creating problems where there aren’t any. Awesome. 

A chill has taken up permanent residence in Luke’s body. He curls inward, trying to pretend like the wind isn’t blowing around him, like the rain isn’t stinging his face and the exposed strip of his ankles that his jeans and socks don’t quite meet to cover. It’s starting to come down harder; Luke’s hoodie is sticking to his shoulders and back and he might as well be wearing nothing at all for all the protection it’s providing him from the cold. He knows that this is the wrong thing to wear in this weather, but that had kind of been the point. It feels right to be doing something wrong on purpose. It certainly feels better than doing it wrong by accident. Or by virtue of it being beyond his control.

He’d expected to be cold, and he is. A sick sort of comfort arises from having predicted that cause-and-effect.

Luke’s mental clock is rubbish, and though his phone is in his pocket he can’t take it out and check it or it’ll get wet, so he has no idea how long he’s been out when it rings. Buzzes. Luke sighs. He digs his phone out of his pocket, cradling it to his chest to keep it out of the rain, and answers the call. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

Luke waits for Michael to say anything. Eventually: “Where are you?”

“Outside,” Luke says. He looks around. “About five minutes away.”

“Away? Where did you go?”

“I didn’t — I was just walking.”

“Oh.” Michael pauses, and Luke knows what he’s going to say before he says it. “In the rain?”

“Is it raining?”

“...Yes?”

“Then yes, in the rain.”

“Okay. Well. Um, are you going to be back soon?”

Luke sighs again. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“Are you, uh…” There’s a moment of silence. Luke glances around himself, turning his back to the wind. The constant motion of his walk had been the only thing keeping him from becoming a glacier of a man, and now he’s lost that.

“Don’t worry about me, Mike,” Luke says. “I won’t be out too long. Promise.” He can’t, or he’ll get hypothermia or frostbite or something.

“Okay,” Michael says. Luke can tell he’s struggling not to ask if Luke is okay, and it makes Luke feel inexplicably affected. That Michael wants to ask, but knows Luke well enough to know that Luke won’t want him to. 

“I’m okay,” he says as a compromise. It’s not really true, but it’s what he would have said if Michael had asked him anyway.

“Okay,” Michael says again, more quietly. “Love you.”

“Love you.”

There’s a long silence. Then Michael hangs up.

The hand holding Luke's phone slowly lowers, shoving it back into his pocket. Luke stares down at the ground. He blinks back tears, but they come faster than he’s able to stop them. There’s no mistaking tears for rain, actually, not in this weather, because these tears are hot and salty when they slide down his cheeks and into the corners of his mouth. The incongruity of warm tears on his freezing cold face almost makes him laugh, except when he opens his mouth to laugh what comes out instead is an unsolicited sob.

Shit. Fuck. He hadn’t meant to cry. He really _hadn’t_ wanted to cry. He’s not going to become a blubbering mess in the middle of the road at midnight. Being sad is acceptable when nothing’s wrong, but _crying_ when nothing’s wrong is crossing a fucking line. 

Why, _why_ is it that hanging up the phone just stabs him in the heart? What the fuck is his problem?

 _One minute,_ he tells himself, crouching down because the smaller he is, the warmer he’ll be; _one minute of crying and then you’re going to stop crying, because there’s nothing to cry about. One minute._

And for one minute he cries.

After one minute, he’s mostly out of tears anyway. Sniffling, he wipes under his eyes with his damp sleeve. _That’s enough,_ he thinks firmly, sniffling again. _Enough. It’s enough._

Before he stands up, he closes his eyes and takes a deep, deep breath. It doesn't alleviate the weight on his chest, the weight of nothing being wrong, but blocking his vision allows him to tune into his other senses. It’s freezing cold and he shivers, listening to the rain softly hitting the pavement. This isn’t a panic attack, but Luke always finds it helpful to zero in on his senses. Quiet rain like static in his ears, the denim of his jeans creased behind his knees in his crouch, lingering salt on his tongue from the last of the tears, tight skin on his cheeks, his shaky inhales and exhales as he fights for a steady breathing pattern.

He’s okay.

Five minutes from home. Luke straightens up, hugging his arms around himself. His fingers and toes have all but frosted over by now. The world is awash in pale yellow and ashy grey, punctuated with almost-black in dark, unlit corners. On either side of him, familiar houses urge Luke onward, promising one more familiar than the rest if he just keeps walking.

So he does.

Five minutes feels very long, though Luke’s sense of time is, of course, warped beyond recognition, and for all he knows it’s ten minutes before he sees their house. Or two. 

Luke stands at the curb before the walkway. It’s freezing cold. He should go inside and warm up. He should make a cup of tea. He should take a hot shower.

Through the window it’s _bright,_ though, so bright, far too bright for the gloomy mood still clamping down on Luke’s shoulders. Even if he went through the living room and shut himself in his room with the lights off, it wouldn’t be the same. The mood is uninterrupted and he doesn’t want to break it with anything.

As Luke stands there, shivering and indecisive, the front door opens.

“Luke?”

“Hi,” Luke says again, like he did on the phone. 

“It’s below freezing,” Michael says. “Are you coming in?”

“No.” He’s not. He can’t. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in five minutes. He can go five more minutes before frostbite becomes a real possibility.

“It’s cold, you’ll freeze,” says Michael.

“It’s not that cold.”

“And it’s raining. Cold _and_ raining.”

“I’m not really cold,” Luke lies. “I’m okay. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Michael stands on the stoop, watching him. From this distance it’s hard to see his expression, but Luke can pretty much guess it’s a mixture of disapproval and concern. Michael has perfected it.

“Be right back,” he finally says, then slips back inside, leaving the door slightly ajar, before Luke can tell him he really doesn’t need to come back. Luke waits, though he contemplates just leaving for another walk. He’s not a dick. Although if Michael returns with Ashton or Calum, Luke will probably be annoyed. He’s not a child and he doesn’t need mothering, which Ashton is sure to do, nor is he in the mood to be cheered up, so Calum won’t be any help either.

Michael returns. He’s wearing a jacket and a beanie and there’s a blanket from off their couch in his hands.

“Michael,” Luke says. 

“Please,” Michael says. “I’m obviously not going to convince you to come inside, but I don’t want you to freeze.” He takes the steps, footsteps falling where Luke’s had, and comes close enough to Luke that when he offers up the blanket, Luke reaches out and takes it. “I know you don’t wear jackets,” Michael explains.

It feels like cheating. The masochistic walk should be all-or-nothing. But Luke can’t bring himself to refuse it. It’s not about the blanket, is the thing, really; it’s not about being warm. It’s about the gesture, about accepting the love and concern of a friend when Luke obviously needs it.

The blanket unfolds in his hands and he wraps it around himself. Some of the chill subsides. A new warmth blooms cautiously from within, starting in his sternum and spreading outward. It moves slowly and with difficulty, thawing the ice that’s formed inside Luke’s chest from all of his internal insistence that being cold had been the solution, but it doesn’t back down.

“Can I stay?” Michael asks. “You can say no.”

“Stay for what?” Luke glances around. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Yeah, I know. I just. Thought you might want to do nothing but…with a friend.”

Luke considers saying no. Michael would shrug, eyebrows drawing together in more concern, probably. _Okay,_ he would say. _Come inside soon._ He would probably shift on his feet, trying to determine whether or not it would be okay to hug Luke, and ultimately decide against it. The door would close behind him and Luke would have the big, empty, glacial outdoors to himself. That had been the goal, when he’d left. To be alone. To have all the room in the world, with the hopes that attempting to fill it would spread his sadness too thin to hold weight. Except that hadn’t really worked. He’d just grown dense, stodgy instead of risen. The rain must have iced his sadness in. 

“Would you?” Luke says quietly, swallowing.

Michael nods. He does a very good job pretending like he hadn’t desperately wanted Luke to say yes, although Luke knows he had. “Are you still walking?”

“I think I was going to sit,” Luke says, glancing down at the curb. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind,” Michael says, and Luke really believes that. Luke takes a seat on the curb, even though the frozen rain seeps through his jeans, and Michael sits shoulder-to-shoulder beside him. They both stare out across the street. 

After a moment, Michael speaks quietly out into the air. “What — uh — I don’t really know what question to ask. Or if I shouldn’t ask anything.”

“Just as long as you don’t ask _what’s wrong_ ,” Luke says wearily. “I’m sick of _what’s wrong._ ”

“Fair enough,” Michael says. There’s a beat of silence. “What are we doing out here?”

“You’re keeping me company.”

“And you’re…?”

Luke shrugs, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. It’s still raining and even the blanket is going to be soaked through soon. Luke’s hands are inside his sleeves, which are inside the blanket, but they’re still numb. “Wallowing.”

He really _is_ wallowing, the most self-indulgent kind of sadness. Hardest to let go of, easiest to drown in. 

“Oh,” Michael says, a soft edge in his voice. “That makes sense.”

“It does?”

“I don’t know, yes?” Michael reaches out with his converse, tapping the side against Luke’s calf. “You’re a wallowing kind of guy. Sometimes that’s what you need.”

For the second time tonight, Luke feels abruptly like he might cry, but this time he doesn’t. “Uh. Thanks. I think?”

“I can wallow with you,” Michael says simply. 

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you?”

A small smile tugs at the corners of Luke’s lips. “Yeah,” he admits.

“Yeah,” Michael says, like he’s just made a point. “But you shouldn’t wallow alone. You should at least have company.”

Luke takes a deep breath. He pulls his hood further over his head and glances over at Michael, who’s just watching his own feet with interest. 

“Okay,” Luke allows, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Just a couple more minutes. Then we can go inside.” He wonders if this had been Michael’s ploy, to guilt Luke back indoors by offering to freeze for him. But he’s pretty sure it isn’t a trick. Michael isn’t manipulative. He’s just loyal.

“Whatever you want,” Michael says, kicking carelessly at a loose piece of asphalt.

Luke hesitates, lingering in the bubble of silence between them that almost seems to mute the rest of the world. Michael looks over at him finally. When he meets Luke’s eyes, he quirks a transient smile. The warmth defrosting Luke’s insides grows hotter.

Luke leans his head on Michael’s shoulder, and Michael only shifts to accommodate him. “You can wallow with me. We can wallow together. If you want to. If you don’t mind.”

Michael tilts his head against Luke’s and hooks his foot around Luke’s ankle. “Yeah. Wallowing together. I can do that.”

It’s bitterly cold, and the icy rain and wind are doing them no favours. But when Luke closes his eyes this time, the only sensation that seems to matter is Michael’s shoulder solid under Luke’s weight, and he doesn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr [@clumsyclifford](http://clumsyclifford.tumblr.com/), come say hi <3 love you guys


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